GROVELING

by Kyrsten Bean

I’m tired
working hard for money
I don’t ever seem to get

Working and living in boxes
selling commodities
we are the commodities

We are robots and
ciphers our
empty-hole heads used to
fill the space in our mouths
Tilling the cash and the register
grovel, grovel, groveling forward
on scraped knees

The gravel is our
hallowed sustenance
drama our lucidity, we are
tossed amongst the debris
privy to the secrets of youth
wasted on the insouciant
insatiable
wise in their eyes
but not their years

We are
another bistro selling hamburgers
for a dollar
late at night when

You have nowhere else to eat